“Suppose we stroll out for a little smoke in the garden,” said Rantoul.

“What, you’re going to leave me?” she said instantly, with a shade of vague uneasiness, that Herkimer perceived.

“We sha’n’t be long, dear,” said Rantoul, pinching her ear.  “Our chatter won’t interest you.  Send the coffee out into the rose cupola.”

They passed out into the open porch, but Herkimer was aware of the little woman standing irresolutely tapping with her thin finger on the table, and he said to himself:  “She’s a little ogress of jealousy.  What the deuce is she afraid I’ll say to him?”

They rambled through sweet-scented paths, under the high-flung network of stars, hearing only the crunching of little pebbles under foot.

“You’ve given up painting?” said Herkimer all at once.

“Yes, though that doesn’t count,” said Rantoul, abruptly; but there was in his voice a different note, something of the restlessness of the old Don Furioso.  “Talk to me of the Quarter.  Who’s at the Cafe des Lilacs now?  They tell me that little Ragin we used to torment so has made some great decorations.  What became of that pretty girl in the creamery of the Rue de l’Ombre who used to help us over the lean days?”

“Whom you christened Our Lady of the Sparrows?” “Yes, yes.  You know I sent her the silk dress and the earrings I promised her.”

Herkimer began to speak of one thing and another, of Bennett, who had gone dramatically to the Transvaal; of Le Gage, who was now in the forefront of the younger group of landscapists; of the old types that still came faithfully to the Cafe des Lilacs,—­the old chess-players, the fat proprietor, with his fat wife and three fat children who dined there regularly every Sunday,—­of the new revolutionary ideas among the younger men that were beginning to assert themselves.

“Let’s sit down,” said Rantoul, as though suffocating.

They placed themselves in wicker easy-chairs, under the heavy-scented rose cupola, disdaining the coffee that waited on a table.  From where they were a red-tiled walk, with flower beds nodding in enchanted sleep, ran to the veranda.  The porch windows were open, and in the golden lamplight Herkimer saw the figure of Tina Glover bent intently over an embroidery, drawing her needle with uneven stitches, her head seeming inclined to catch the faintest sound.  The waiting, nervous pose, the slender figure on guard, brought to him a strange, almost uncanny sensation of mystery, and feeling the sudden change in the mood of the man at his side, he gazed at the figure of the wife and said to himself: 

[Illustration:  Our Lady of the Sparrows]

“I’d give a good deal to know what’s passing through that little head.  What is she afraid of?”

“You’re surprised to find me as I am,” said Rantoul, abruptly breaking the silence.

“Yes.”

“You can’t understand it?”

“When did you give up painting?” said Herkimer, shortly, with a sure feeling that the hour of confidences had come.